Darkened Skye

by ACTIVISION

Product Features

• Video Game
• Activision Inc.
• GameCube
• Teen

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00007B77R
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches ; 3.2 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: November 12, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,681 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

An offbeat adventure. Darkened Skye is by no means conventional. It strives to be a wacky and slightly humorous adventure. In this aspect it suceeds perfectly. It is certainly like no adventure that has ever come before it and that is very refreshing. The story is the best aspect of the game.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The name says it all, July 27, 2003

By 

DeRosset Myers "DeRo" (St Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Darkened Skye (Video Game)

If not for the horrible controls, Darkened Skye would have been a great game. Unfortunately, no matter which way you set your configurations, the game remains frustrating. One of the problems is one so common in third-party Gamecube games: functions of the L&R buttons suffer from the "click only" effect, meaning you have to press them all the way in for a response. This is apparent also in BloodRayne, NAMCO Arcade Museum, and Evolution Worlds, among other titles. I don't know why third-parties do this -- it irritates the hell out of me and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Anyway, this is one of those medieval settings on no particular planet. You play as Skye, a sarcastic teenage girl on a mission to stop something-or-other. I don't mind the dumb idea of using Skittles as magic; actually I think it's kind of cute. The dry humor is almost funny too.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An offbeat adventure that isn't perfect but still fun., November 16, 2002

By 

pamela saucier (Mississippi, usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Darkened Skye (Video Game)

Darkened Skye is by no means conventional. It strives to be a wacky and slightly humorous adventure. In this aspect it suceeds perfectly. It is certainly like no adventure that has ever come before it and that is very refreshing. Since the story is the best aspect of the game,I won't spoil any of it for you. If this game were rated on story and characters alone it would get five stars but unfortunately it is not and if you wish to play through this game you'll have to contend with some really big flaws. The controls are fully customizable which is nice (and rare for a next generation console game) but no matter how you set them up they never feel right. This game came out a few years ago on PC and it shows. After the first few hours you might be able to get used to the really sucky controls but this games combat will be thorn in your side that will never go away. Even when you have magic to use on the enemies all combat is hitting or shooting a bad guy a few times and running away to avoid getting hit. The game always seems slanted in their favor due to their speed (about twice as fast as you) and strength (most enemies are twice as strong as you). Basically what this amounts to is that you'll avoid and run from enemies far more often than you'll stay and fight. The graphics are nice, they never take full advantage of the gamecubes power or make you oow and aww but they're not ugly enough to make you not want to play the game (the controls and enemies do that). Sonically the games music is really good and the voice acting stands as one of the best on the system thus far (I would put it ahead of Star Fox Adventures). Overall rent this game first, for those who can overlook it's two major flaws it will be a quest well worth taking and a must have. For those that cannot that one rental will be your Darkened Skye fix. You don't know what your missing though.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Painful, May 27, 2003

By 

"rosewood03" (Oxnard, CA US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darkened Skye (Video Game)

It's painful to write this review because I honestly believe Darkened Skye could have been an enjoyable (but not necessarily great or classic) game. However, several problems make it close to unplayable. I'll try to be fair and tell you its good points as well as the bad.

The story and characters are fun. There is Skye, whose mother left her a mysterious legacy before she disappeared. There is her ex-bad-guy companion (who serves as your information provider), and a number of characters that Skye comes across in her travels. Oh yes, let's not forget your standard bad guy who is trying to take over the world. The constant smarmy fourth-wall breaking and stupid jokes suit the game well, because the whole purpose of the thing is, well, to sell Skittles candy. For it to take itself seriously wouldn't work at all.

Skye learns new abilities by finding Skittles that she plugs into spell slots. The result is a well-presented, simple magic system where almost every ability Skye learns is important to her quest.

The graphics, while not up-to-the-minute glossy, are attractive enough, but the landscapes are pretty homogenous sometimes. I spent over a half hour wandering around lost in the first forest because almost everything looked exactly alike. Other worlds are easier to deal with, with easily discerned pathways and draw distance that gives a good illusion of open space.

Music is unobtrusive, in a good way, creating an atmosphere without intruding. The voices are fun to listen to and the voice actors were well suited to their roles.

Now, on to the bad stuff.

Almost right away I could tell this was a port of a PC game because of the controls. Regardless of how I configured them I found myself constantly strafing when I meant to turn, and unable to steer properly on platform jumps, leading to death after death--since poor Skye has the double curse of being both unable to swim and finding herself constantly platform-jumping across water. Aiming at flying monsters, or fighting on the ground, were both difficult because the sensitivity of the analog controller made the camera angle slew around wildly. The lack of a lock-on feature added to the misery. (I also suspect bad hit detection, or that the monsters have hit areas that are too small) Between platforming and fighting I had literally dozens of deaths in the first hour and a half of saved gameplay, which spoiled the fun to say the least.

Another thing that makes Darkened Skye frustrating is lack of direction in the puzzles. The puzzles themselves are well-designed and make good use of the magic system, but you're almost never given enough hints as to where you're supposed to go next or what specifically you're supposed to be doing. (A world map like Drakan's, letting you know what your quests are and which direction they lie in, would have been great, but...) Without the walkthrough given in the instruction manual, I would never have made it through the first three worlds, and after that I confess I quit because I was spending far too much time wandering and far too little time actually getting anywhere.

There may well be a three- or four-star game buried in Darkened Skye, but I wasn't able, or willing, to weather its considerable frustrations to find it. Disappointing.